Happy Birthday, Aunt Martha!
Today is my Aunt Martha’s 72nd birthday. How odd, my mother’s sister is that age. I remember her 42nd birthday quite easily. That seems more like it should be now.
I finished my first class with an 87. I’m satisfied with it, because of the two catastrophic things that happened during the course of the class…my wife being hospitalized again for blood clots in her lungs and then my cousin dying of a heart attack. I’m having trouble with the reality of that second one…which I don’t understand. I was a pall bearer, so I KNOW she died…but inside me, it’s almost like she’s off somewhere hiding on a vacation; that she’ll be back. She won’t, though. *sigh* I wish I knew how to penetrate this foggy denial thing, because obviously I KNOW she’s dead. So what’s the hangup inside?
Ironic that my cousin’s name was Lori. My wife’s name is Laurie. They’re pronounced pretty much the same, much to Laurie’s chagrin (she’d like people to say "Law-ree" for hers, not "Lore-ee"). But some people automatically spell wife’s name "Lori", for some reason, so I confused a number of Facebook friends.
Maybe that’s the hard part…saying Lori died, and it sounding so much like my wife died, instead.
I bet that does have a lot to do with it. Also, I think there’s a degree of denial any time you lose someone, whether it be from death or something less permanent. We just can’t get used to the idea that someone who has always been there won’t be anymore.
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